Google warned against an Irish ban on data centres

It said it would send the “wrong signal” about Ireland’s ambitions as a digital economy and risked impeding businesses who want to use cloud computing services.

Google said it wants to continue to invest in data centre infrastructure in the country, but a moratorium would “render this impossible”.

Uncertainty 'bad for business'

The multinational warned that data centres in Dublin need to be able to depend on access to the electricity network and that any “uncertainty” on this is “bad for business”.

Google said any changes in data centre policy planned by the CRU needed to be temporary in nature as longer-term solutions for Ireland’s electricity crunch were identified.

In the submission, it called for more transparency over where there is existing electricity capacity in the Irish network.

It said there needed to be greater clarity and openness over Eirgrid projections on forecasting the growth of data centre electricity usage.

Google proposed a new tariff system for data centre operators who reserved more capacity than they ultimately needed, or were too slow to grow into that capacity. It said: 

Transmission charging can be designed such that consumers whose demand is not increasing towards their maximum reservation are charged more than those that demonstrate each year that they are growing.

The submission also said that while it understood Ireland’s current electricity supply issues, these could be rectified with a longer-term approach.

Google was particularly concerned about any plans to block off data centre development on a regional basis or in Dublin, saying this carried its own risks.

“Demand for cloud computing in Dublin is growing,” it said, “and many cloud services must be delivered by data centres close to the user i.e. these services cannot be delivered as needed by customers by data centres located far from Dublin.”